George Osborne Quotes & Sayings

#1. Only the U.K. can trigger Article 50. And in my judgement, we should only do that when there is a clear view about what new arrangements we are seeking with our European neighbours.

George Osborne

#2. Politics as a parent is fairly demanding; if your parent is in politics, it's fairly demanding, so I make no excuses about taking two weeks off.

George Osborne

#3. The Conservative party, the modern Conservative party, is on the side of people who want to work hard and get on.

George Osborne

#4. Of all the public services, education is the one I'm most interested in. You get a more dynamic economy, you deal with most social problems, and it's morally right.

George Osborne

#5. We must bring unity of spirit and purpose and condemn hatred and division wherever we see it.

George Osborne

#6. Most successful politicians don't let the job swamp their lives.

George Osborne

#7. If the E.U. allows itself to be priced out of the world economy, the next generation will not get jobs, living standards will decline, and the Union will lose the popular consent of the people of Europe.

George Osborne

#8. If you want to change the way your banking system is regulated, if you want to learn the mistakes of what's gone wrong, then you have to change your government.

George Osborne

#9. I want London to be the global sporting capital.

George Osborne

#10. There was a real fear that a euro-zone bank might fail, that we'd have a sovereign debt problem in one of the larger European economies. That's dissipated, thanks largely to the action of the European Central Bank.

George Osborne

#11. No ifs, no buts - we will not share the pound if Scotland separates from the U.K.

George Osborne

#12. Of course the Liberal Democrats are going to say things to try and get attention - but I don't think the country is paying much attention.

George Osborne

#13. We are not quitters. Britain has always gone out there; we have probably been more influential than any other country in shaping our world and the way it has thought about itself, the way we interact as nations.

George Osborne

#14. For families flying out of the U.K. for a winter getaway, airports should be the ideal place to pick up a bargain.

George Osborne

#15. I think you can look at the British economy with confidence.

George Osborne

#16. I think its important, particularly when you've got young children, to spend some time with them.

George Osborne

#17. I want Britain to be a global financial centre but I want it to be properly regulated.

George Osborne

#18. What's important is that, come the general election, people think the right things of you. They think that you've got the right values and the right policies. And that you're the right kind of person to lead the country.

George Osborne

#19. Our long-term economic plan is all about creating jobs and the economic security that comes with that.

George Osborne

#20. Nuclear power is cost-competitive with other low-carbon technology and is a crucial part of our energy mix, along with new sources of power such as shale gas.

George Osborne

#21. It's not enough to tackle just the symptoms of poverty. You have to tackle the causes of poverty.

George Osborne

#22. To all companies large and small, I would say this: the British economy is fundamentally strong; we are highly competitive, and we are open for business.

George Osborne

#23. The Conservative party is at its strongest when it's not the party that says there is no role for government and the state should just get out of the way. That is not a strand of Conservative thinking that, by itself, is enough.

George Osborne

#24. I would say I have taken substantive action to make things easier for people.

George Osborne

#25. I'm a Conservative who believes in lower taxes. They lead to a more enterprising economy. But I'm not somebody who believes you can fund lower taxes by borrowing more money.

George Osborne

#26. It's perfectly reasonable in a coalition between two political parties that you get supporters of those parties you know stressing the things they want to stress.

George Osborne

#27. I do not want Britain to turn its back on Europe or the rest of the world.

George Osborne

#28. The Office for Budget Responsibility correctly stay out of the political debate and do not assess the long-term costs and benefits of E.U. membership.

George Osborne

#29. Frankly, people buying a home to let should not be squeezing out families who can't afford a home to buy.

George Osborne

#30. It's difficult to see how Syria can have any long-term future with Assad there as president. Many people would never return to that country if that were the case.

George Osborne

#31. The Conservative Party mustn't sound like the old man on the park bench who says things were better in 1985, or 1955, or 1855.

George Osborne

#32. I fought passionately to remain in the E.U., and I warned of the economic risks if we left the E.U.

George Osborne

#33. I want Britain to be the home of successful competitive and stable financial services.

George Osborne

#34. I want to see families with lower energy bills.

George Osborne

#35. I have done everything I can to move Britain out of the financial danger zone.

George Osborne

#36. I'm tempted to say that Conservative governments are normally elected to clear up the mess left by Labour governments.

George Osborne

#37. It's not easy cutting welfare bills. It's not easy cutting the deficit.

George Osborne

#38. Believe me, I understand that most higher rate taxpayers are not the super-rich.

George Osborne

#39. I think people who sit around and are always yearning for the next thing are not always the happiest people.

George Osborne

#40. There were some who wanted all the benefits of E.U. membership without any of the costs. I'm not sure that's very realistic.

George Osborne

#41. If someone believes that living on benefits is a lifestyle choice, then we need to make them think again.

George Osborne

#42. I've learned to be true to yourself, stick to the big arguments, don't get distracted by the everyday kerfuffle that is in the nature of any democratic system.

George Osborne

#43. If we don't get a grip on government spending, there will be no growth.

George Osborne

#44. We will also target tax evasion and off-shore tax havens ... Everyone must pay their share.

George Osborne

#45. People should know this of me: I will do what is required to keep our country safe and secure because, in the end, that is what people's livelihoods and jobs rely on.

George Osborne

#46. When I was born, the Internet was barely two years old. It was the preserve of academics, used to connect dozens rather than billions of users. There weren't many who predicted it would transform our world.

George Osborne

#47. The threat from terrorists - from extreme ideologies - needs to be challenged head-on.

George Osborne

#48. It's in our interests that the euro is a successful, strong currency.

George Osborne

#49. I was shocked to see that some of the very wealthiest people in the country have organised their tax affairs, and to be fair it's within the tax laws, so that they were regularly paying virtually no income tax. And I don't think that's right.

George Osborne

#50. We need strength and success elsewhere in our country - not by pulling London down but by building the rest of the country up.

George Osborne

#51. Tony Blair was a good politician but not a good Prime Minister, and that's what we don't want to be. We don't want to be just people who are good at winning elections: we want to be good at governing. I think we benefit from having seen the mistakes that we think Tony Blair made in 1997.

George Osborne

#52. I didn't come from a traditional Tory background; it was urban and metropolitan.

George Osborne

#53. Britain has always been a home to the vulnerable, and we've always done what we need to do to help people who are fleeing persecution.

George Osborne

#54. I can't imagine a God who would ever need to intercede in the daily travails of my life.

George Osborne

#55. You really have to try hard to create space and, at least for a time, stop the political world from rushing in. The important thing is to remain sane.

George Osborne

#56. I reject absolutely the idea that people should know their place, and know their class.

George Osborne

#57. Unless they have disabilities to cope with, no family should get more from living on benefits than the average family gets from going out to work. No more open-ended chequebook.

George Osborne

#58. We should be doing more business with China. We should be better connected to the Chinese economy.

George Osborne

#59. Well look, no one takes pleasure from people making money out of the misery of others, but that is a function of capitalist markets.

George Osborne

#60. Sound public finances are not the enemy of sustained growth - they are its precondition.

George Osborne

#61. I'm not one of those who thinks there is something inherently bad or inferior about watching television.

George Osborne

#62. I want to see genuine talent rewarded.

George Osborne

#63. The Internet has made us richer, freer, connected and informed in ways its founders could not have dreamt of. It has also become a vector of attack, espionage, crime and harm.

George Osborne

#64. Well can I just say unlike my predecessors, Conservative and Labour, I have set up an independent body that studies whether what I'm saying is true, whether I've met the targets that I set out.

George Osborne

#65. Just as we should never balance the budget on the backs of the poor, so it is an economic delusion to think you can balance it only on the wallets of the rich.

George Osborne

#66. I think the best solution to this challenge, and I accept there is a challenge with homophobic bullying, is to make sure we get rid of the bullying rather than feeling we have to take kids out of our schools and teach then somewhere else. That would be the best approach.

George Osborne

#67. The foundations of a strong economy don't rest alone on the decisions of Chancellors or the spending programmes of government.

George Osborne

#68. I understand the damage the expenses crisis has done to Parliament, and the paramount importance of restoring trust in our politics.

George Osborne

#69. Working people of this country want economic security. The worst possible thing you can do for those families is bust the public finances, have some welfare system this country can't afford.

George Osborne

#70. I am a social liberal.

George Osborne

#71. The Conservative party absolutely must not allow itself to be shut out of parts of the north of England.

George Osborne

#72. If freedom of movement is to be sustainable, then our publics must see it as freedom to move to work, rather than freedom to choose the most generous benefits.

George Osborne

#73. It is not fair that people who are born in the UK to parents who are domiciled here, can later in life claim to be non-doms and live here, it is not fair that non-doms with residential property here in the UK can put it in an offshore company and avoid inheritance tax.

George Osborne

#74. We don't see a choice between securing growth and investment and raising human rights issues.

George Osborne

#75. If the country's poorer, it's got less money.

George Osborne

#76. If you're looking for ways to cut waste in government, you can start with John Prescott.

George Osborne

#77. I get a lot of letters from people.

George Osborne

#78. No other chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people he has the political will to implement his own Budget.

George Osborne

#79. The former pension minister, the Liberal Democrat Steve Webb said I was trying to abolish the lump sum. Instead, we are going to keep the lump sum and abolish the Liberal Democrats.

George Osborne

#80. There is lots of evidence that it is this fear of going into debt that most puts people from poorer backgrounds off going to university.

George Osborne

#81. We have accepted there is a big role for government to create a framework where businesses can grow in all parts of the country.

George Osborne

#82. I'm a very happy, content member of David Cameron's team. I fought very hard to get my friend elected as leader of the Conservative party, then elected as the prime minister of this country, and I'm very happy being part of that team that is bringing change to this country.

George Osborne

#83. We are absolutely going to have to provide fiscal security to people; in other words, we are going to have to show the country and the world that the country can live within its means.

George Osborne

#84. I've always thought that good politics follows from good economics and good policies.

George Osborne

#85. Printing money is the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed.

George Osborne

#86. It was the Conservatives who first protected people in the mills.

George Osborne

#87. In football, as in politics, resilience pays off.

George Osborne

#88. To simply argue that public spending must always go up and never be cut is irresponsible.

George Osborne

#89. You cannot tackle Britain's debts without tackling the unreformed welfare system.

George Osborne

#90. ISIL are already using the Internet for hideous propaganda purposes - for radicalisation, for operational planning, too.

George Osborne

#91. Britain has no divine right to be one of the richest countries in the world.

George Osborne

#92. I support gay marriage. I support gay marriage because I believe Conservatives support the institutions of commitment.

George Osborne

#93. The positive news is that the British economy is continuing to grow and is creating jobs. And it is positive news too that at a time of real international instability we are a safe haven in the storm.

George Osborne